Abstract: Mental health professionals views about mental illness
is an important issue which has not received enough attention. The
negative stigma associated with mental illness can have many
negative consequences. Unfortunately, health professionals working
with the mentally ill can also exhibit stigma. It has been suggested
that causal explanations or beliefs around the causes of mental illness
may influence stigma. This study aims to gain a greater insight into
stigma through examining stigma among potential mental health
professionals. Firstly, results found that potential mental health
professionals had relatively low social distance t(205) = -3.62, p
Abstract: The performance of a sucrose-based H2 production in
a completely stirred tank reactor (CSTR) was modeled by neural
network back-propagation (BP) algorithm. The H2 production was
monitored over a period of 450 days at 35±1 ºC. The proposed model
predicts H2 production rates based on hydraulic retention time
(HRT), recycle ratio, sucrose concentration and degradation, biomass
concentrations, pH, alkalinity, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP),
acids and alcohols concentrations. Artificial neural networks (ANNs)
have an ability to capture non-linear information very efficiently. In
this study, a predictive controller was proposed for management and
operation of large scale H2-fermenting systems. The relevant control
strategies can be activated by this method. BP based ANNs modeling
results was very successful and an excellent match was obtained
between the measured and the predicted rates. The efficient H2
production and system control can be provided by predictive control
method combined with the robust BP based ANN modeling tool.
Abstract: Characterization and evaluation of the activity of Vespa basalis DPP-IV, which expressed in Spodoptera frugiperda 21 cells. The expression of rDPP-IV was confirmed by SDS–PAGE, Western blot analyses, LC-MS/MS and measurement of its peptidase specificity. One-step purification by Ni-NTA affinity chromatography and the total amount of rDPP-IV recovered was approximately 6.4mg per liter from infected culture medium; an equivalent amount would be produced by 1x109 infected Sf21 insect cells. Through the affinity purification led to highly stable rDPP-IV enzyme was recovered and with significant peptidase activity. The rDPP-IV exhibited classical Michaelis–Menten kinetics, with kcat/Km in the range of 10-500 mM-1×S-1 for the five synthetic substrates and optimum substrate is Ala-Pro-pNA. As expected in inhibition assay, the enzymatic activity of rDPP-IV was significantly reduced by 80 or 60% in the presence of sitagliptin (a DPP-IV inhibitor) or PMSF (a serine protease inhibitor), but was not apparently affected by iodoacetamide (a cysteine protease inhibitor).
Abstract: This paper aims to develop a model that assists the
international retailer in selecting the country that maximizes the
degree of fit between the retailer-s goals and the country
characteristics in his initial internationalization move. A two-stage
multi criteria decision model is designed integrating the Analytic
Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Goal Programming. Ethical, cultural,
geographic and economic proximity are identified as the relevant
constructs of the internationalization decision. The constructs are
further structured into sub-factors within analytic hierarchy. The
model helps the retailer to integrate, rank and weigh a number of
hard and soft factors and prioritize the countries accordingly. The
model has been implemented on a Turkish luxury goods retailer who
was planning to internationalize. Actual entry of the specific retailer
in the selected country is a support for the model. Implementation on
a single retailer limits the generalizability of the results; however, the
emphasis of the paper is on construct identification and model
development. The paper enriches the existing literature by proposing
a hybrid multi objective decision model which introduces new soft
dimensions i.e. perceived distance, ethical proximity, humane
orientation to the decision process and facilitates effective decision
making.
Abstract: Different forms of interaction are an integral part of
modern courses. Traditional courses held on-campus might focus on
teacher-student interaction, or student-student interaction, or both.
However when these traditional on-campus courses are to be held as
distance courses there is a risk that these well-designed interactions
will be difficult or impossible to uphold. For example, studentstudent
interaction in traditional project assignments might not work
well if the students are scattered across the world. Thus, even a welldesigned
traditional on-site course cannot without modification be
turned into a distance course. Traditional on-site courses simply have
to be redesigned to become true distance courses. This paper
describes a structured approach which facilitates the redesign of a
traditional course into a distance course. The approach is based on
that the desired forms of course flexibility are identified, and
thereafter that the course activities are redesigned to facilitate
interaction in a distance course. The approach is making use of
known patterns of pedagogic interaction and existing guidelines for
distance education design. The approach is illustrated with an
example course in the field of information systems design.
Abstract: We report the size dependence of 1D superconductivity in ultrathin (10-130 nm) nanowires produced by coating suspended carbon nanotubes with a superconducting NbN thin film. The resistance-temperature characteristic curves for samples with ≧25 nm wire width show the superconducting transition. On the other hand, for the samples with 10-nm width, the superconducting transition is not exhibited owing to the quantum size effect. The differential resistance vs. current density characteristic curves show some peak, indicating that Josephson junctions are formed in nanowires. The presence of the Josephson junctions is well explained by the measurement of the magnetic field dependence of the critical current. These understanding allow for the further expansion of the potential application of NbN, which is utilized for single photon detectors and so on.
Abstract: The scientific community has invested a great deal of effort in the fields of discrete wavelet transform in the last few decades. Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) associated with the vector quantization has been proved to be a very useful tool for the compression of image. However, the DWT is very computationally intensive process requiring innovative and computationally efficient method to obtain the image compression. The concurrent transformation of the image can be an important solution to this problem. This paper proposes a model of concurrent DWT for image compression. Additionally, the formal verification of the model has also been performed. Here the Symbolic Model Verifier (SMV) has been used as the formal verification tool. The system has been modeled in SMV and some properties have been verified formally.
Abstract: In recent past, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) has become the de facto industry standard for object-oriented modeling of the software systems. The syntax and semantics rich UML has encouraged industry to develop several supporting tools including those capable of generating deployable product (code) from the UML models. As a consequence, ensuring the correctness of the model/design has become challenging and extremely important task. In this paper, we present an approach for automatic verification of protocol model/design. As a case study, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) design is verified for the property, “the CALLER will not converse with the CALLEE before the connection is established between them ". The SIP is modeled using UML statechart diagrams and the desired properties are expressed in temporal logic. Our prototype verifier “UML-SMV" is used to carry out the verification. We subjected an erroneous SIP model to the UML-SMV, the verifier could successfully detect the error (in 76.26ms) and generate the error trace.
Abstract: The study investigates the causal link between trade
openness and economic growth for four South Asian countries for
period 1972-1985 and 1986-2007 to examine the scenario before and
after the implementation of SAARC. Panel cointegration and
FMOLS techniques are employed for short run and long run
estimates. In 1972-85 short run unidirectional causality from GDP to
openness is found whereas, in 1986-2007 there exists bi-directional
causality between GDP and openness. The long run elasticity
magnitude between GDP and openness contains negative sign in
1972-85 which shows that there exists long run negative relationship.
While in time period 1986-2007 the elasticity magnitude has positive
sign that indicates positive causation between GDP and openness. So
it can be concluded that after the implementation of SAARC overall
situation of selected countries got better. Also long run coefficient of
error term suggests that short term equilibrium adjustments are driven
by adjustment back to long run equilibrium.
Abstract: Prior research has examined the relationship between religiosity, religious involvement, and involvement in secular, civic organizations. However, research has not examined the influence of religious involvement on secular, non-civic organizations (i.e. work organizations). This study examines the link between religiosity, religious involvement, and the three-component model of organizational commitment. More specifically, the author hypothesizes that individuals high in religiosity (and religious involvement) will have lower affective, continuance, and normative commitment than less religious (or non-religious) individuals. In addition, it is hypothesized that this relationship is moderated by a third factor: organizational spirituality. Further, the author hypothesizes that for organizations that are spiritual the negative relationship between religiosity and job commitment will be weakened or even negated.
Abstract: Restarted GMRES methods augmented with approximate eigenvectors are widely used for solving large sparse linear systems. Recently a new scheme of augmenting with error approximations is proposed. The main aim of this paper is to develop a restarted GMRES method augmented with the combination of harmonic Ritz vectors and error approximations. We demonstrate that the resulted combination method can gain the advantages of two approaches: (i) effectively deflate the small eigenvalues in magnitude that may hamper the convergence of the method and (ii) partially recover the global optimality lost due to restarting. The effectiveness and efficiency of the new method are demonstrated through various numerical examples.
Abstract: This research attempts to study the feasibility of
augmenting an augmented reality (AR) image card on a Quick
Response (QR) code. The authors have developed a new visual tag,
which contains a QR code and an augmented AR image card. The new
visual tag has features of reading both of the revealed data of the QR
code and the instant data from the AR image card. Furthermore, a
handheld communicating device is used to read and decode the new
visual tag, and then the concealed data of the new visual tag can be
revealed and read through its visual display. In general, the QR code is
designed to store the corresponding data or, as a key, to access the
corresponding data from the server through internet. Those reveled
data from the QR code are represented in text. Normally, the AR
image card is designed to store the corresponding data in
3-Dimensional or animation/video forms. By using QR code's
property of high fault tolerant rate, the new visual tag can access those
two different types of data by using a handheld communicating device.
The new visual tag has an advantage of carrying much more data than
independent QR code or AR image card. The major findings of this
research are: 1) the most efficient area for the designed augmented AR
card augmenting on the QR code is 9% coverage area out of the total
new visual tag-s area, and 2) the best location for the augmented AR
image card augmenting on the QR code is located in the bottom-right
corner of the new visual tag.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel sinusoidal modulation
scheme that features least correlated noise and high linearity. The
modulation circuit, which is composed of a quantizer, a resonator, and
a comparator, is capable of eliminating correlated modulation noise
while doing modulation. The proposed modulation scheme combined
with the linear quadratic optimal control is applied to a single-phase
voltage source inverter and validated with the experiment results. The
experiments show that the inverter supplies stable 60Hz 110V AC
power with a total harmonic distortion of less than 1%, under the DC
input variation from 190 V to 300 V and the output power variation
from 0 to 600 W.
Abstract: In this paper a fast motion estimation method for
H.264/AVC named Triplet Search Motion Estimation (TS-ME) is
proposed. Similar to some of the traditional fast motion estimation
methods and their improved proposals which restrict the search points
only to some selected candidates to decrease the computation
complexity, proposed algorithm separate the motion search process to
several steps but with some new features. First, proposed algorithm try
to search the real motion area using proposed triplet patterns instead of
some selected search points to avoid dropping into the local minimum.
Then, in the localized motion area a novel 3-step motion search
algorithm is performed. Proposed search patterns are categorized into
three rings on the basis of the distance from the search center. These
three rings are adaptively selected by referencing the surrounding
motion vectors to early terminate the motion search process. On the
other hand, computation reduction for sub pixel motion search is also
discussed considering the appearance probability of the sub pixel
motion vector. From the simulation results, motion estimation speed
improved by a factor of up to 38 when using proposed algorithm than
that of the reference software of H.264/AVC with ignorable picture
quality loss.
Abstract: The colors of the human skin represent a special
category of colors, because they are distinctive from the colors of
other natural objects. This category is found as a cluster in color
spaces, and the skin color variations between people are mostly due
to differences in the intensity. Besides, the face detection based on
skin color detection is a faster method as compared to other
techniques. In this work, we present a system to track faces by
carrying out skin color detection in four different color spaces: HSI,
YCbCr, YES and RGB. Once some skin color regions have been
detected for each color space, we label each and get some
characteristics such as size and position. We are supposing that a face
is located in one the detected regions. Next, we compare and employ
a polling strategy between labeled regions to determine the final
region where the face effectively has been detected and located.
Abstract: Prior research has not effectively investigated how the
profitability of Chinese branches affect FDIs in China [1, 2], so this
study for the first time incorporates realistic earnings information
to systematically investigate effects of innovation, imitation, and
profit factors of FDI diffusions from Taiwan to China. Our nonlinear
least square (NLS) model, which incorporates earnings factors,
forms a nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODE) in numerical
simulation programs. The model parameters are obtained through
a genetic algorithms (GA) technique and then optimized with the
collected data for the best accuracy. Particularly, Taiwanese regulatory
FDI restrictions are also considered in our modified model to meet
the realistic conditions. To validate the model-s effectiveness, this
investigation compares the prediction accuracy of modified model
with the conventional diffusion model, which does not take account
of the profitability factors.
The results clearly demonstrate the internal influence to be positive,
as early FDI adopters- consistent praises of FDI attract potential firms
to make the same move. The former erects a behavior model for the
latter to imitate their foreign investment decision. Particularly, the
results of modified diffusion models show that the earnings from
Chinese branches are positively related to the internal influence. In
general, the imitating tendency of potential consumers is substantially
hindered by the losses in the Chinese branches, and these firms would
invest less into China. The FDI inflow extension depends on earnings
of Chinese branches, and companies will adjust their FDI strategies
based on the returns. Since this research has proved that earning is
an influential factor on FDI dynamics, our revised model explicitly
performs superior in prediction ability than conventional diffusion
model.
Abstract: The aerodynamics characteristics of a blended-wing body (BWB) aircraft were obtained in Universiti Teknologi MARA low speed wind tunnel. The scaled-down of BWB model consisted of a canard as its horizontal stabilizer. There were four canards with different aspect ratio used in the experiments. Canard setting angles were varied from -20q to 20q. All tests were conducted at velocity of 35 m/s, with Mach number 0.1. At low angles of attacks, the increment of lift slope for various canards aspect ratio is small and almost constant. Higher canard aspect ratio will cause higher drag. However, canard has a high effect to the moment at zero lift, CM,0.The visualization using mini tuff was performed to observe the airflow at the upper surface of canard. KeywordsAerodynamics,blended-wing body, canard, wind tunnel.
Abstract: This analysis investigates the distortion of flow
measurement and the increase of cavitation along orifice
flowmeter. The analysis using the numerical method (CFD)
validated the distortion of flow measurement through the inlet
velocity profile considering the convergence and grid
dependency. Realizable k-e model was selected and y+ was
about 50 in this numerical analysis. This analysis also estimated
the vulnerability of cavitation effect due to inlet velocity profile.
The investigation concludes that inclined inlet velocity profile
could vary the pressure which was measured at pressure tab
near pipe wall and it led to distort the pressure values ranged
from -3.8% to 5.3% near the orifice plate and to make the
increase of cavitation. The investigation recommends that the
fully developed inlet velocity flow is beneficial to accurate flow
measurement in orifice flowmeter.
Abstract: Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess unique structural,
mechanical, thermal and electronic properties, and have been
proposed to be used for applications in many fields. However, to
reach the full potential of the CNTs, many problems still need to be
solved, including the development of an easy and effective
purification procedure, since synthesized CNTs contain impurities,
such as amorphous carbon, carbon nanoparticles and metal particles.
Different purification methods yield different CNT characteristics
and may be suitable for the production of different types of CNTs. In
this study, the effect of different purification chemicals on carbon
nanotube quality was investigated. CNTs were firstly synthesized by
chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of acetylene (C2H2) on a
magnesium oxide (MgO) powder impregnated with an iron nitrate
(Fe(NO3)3·9H2O) solution. The synthesis parameters were selected
as: the synthesis temperature of 800°C, the iron content in the
precursor of 5% and the synthesis time of 30 min. The liquid phase
oxidation method was applied for the purification of the synthesized
CNT materials. Three different acid chemicals (HNO3, H2SO4, and
HCl) were used in the removal of the metal catalysts from the
synthesized CNT material to investigate the possible effects of each
acid solution to the purification step. Purification experiments were
carried out at two different temperatures (75 and 120 °C), two
different acid concentrations (3 and 6 M) and for three different time
intervals (6, 8 and 15 h). A 30% H2O2 : 3M HCl (1:1 v%) solution
was also used in the purification step to remove both the metal
catalysts and the amorphous carbon. The purifications using this
solution were performed at the temperature of 75°C for 8 hours.
Purification efficiencies at different conditions were evaluated by
thermogravimetric analysis. Thermal and electrical properties of
CNTs were also determined. It was found that the obtained electrical
conductivity values for the carbon nanotubes were typical for organic
semiconductor materials and thermal stabilities were changed
depending on the purification chemicals.
Abstract: The effects of ethylene (C2H4) feed position and
O2/C2H4 feed molar ratio on ethylene epoxidation in a parallel
dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) were studied. The results showed
that the ethylene feed position fraction of 0.5 and the feed molar
ratio of O2/C2H4 of 0.2:1 gave the highest EO selectivity of 34.3%
and the highest EO yield of 5.28% with low power consumptions of
2.11×10-16 Ws/molecule of ethylene converted and 6.34×10-16
Ws/molecule of EO produced when the DBD system was operated
under the best conditions: an applied voltage of 19 kV, an input
frequency of 500 Hz and a total feed flow rate of 50 cm3/min. The
separate ethylene feed system provided much higher epoxidation
activity as compared to the mixed feed system which gave EO
selectivity of 15.5%, EO yield of 2.1% and the power consumption of
EO produced of 7.7×10-16 Ws/molecule.